Being Woman

I know she was not the one who posted all those things on her website because when I asked her for comment about something which was already posted there, her words were different. Well, she also meant the same thing, but the way she said it was different. No, I am not imagining things. I pointed it out to her just to let her know I still existed. I thought she overlooked my name when she sent those messages to everyone except me but the truth, I found out only now, was that she did not send anything to anybody. It was another person who sent them. The other person simply left me out; why can’t I get used to it? They’ve been used to doing things like this for centuries. The other person did not want to have anything to do with me, maybe, she hated me. Thinking about this, I feel depressed. I missed my laid back life in the state university when I was 17, and we used to gather together in groups to study Calculus. I can still see Alice, her longish face tilted, her doleful eyes drooping as she stops below the eaves of the Methodist Church’s Dormitory, turning to me, pausing dramatically just before the stairway to tell me, I had to be there at exactly six o’clock after prayer time because Rey or LaPaz will be there to help solve our problems.

As if Calculus, or Physics, or Chemistry, or even Spherical Trigonometry was even my problem. I was already uneasy then. But still, it took years for me to figure out what was the matter: that what was bogging me was not Calculus, nor Physics nor Chemistry nor Spherical Trigonometry, nor Engineering Mechanics. Not at all. I remember staying inside the room of my dormitory, listening to the pitter-patter of rain outside the jalousie windows, watching the dewdrops on the leaves of grass, turning the pages of my book, and still, I failed to figure things out, failed to directly lay my finger on what really was bogging me. It took me half a century to figure out the problem. I never knew it then. The problem was being a woman.